


Playing to a Different Beat

by sarkywoman



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-25
Updated: 2007-06-25
Packaged: 2018-03-31 14:14:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3981112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarkywoman/pseuds/sarkywoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written about 8 years ago. My first DW fic. The Doctor offers himself to stop the drums.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playing to a Different Beat

It’s hard listening to two songs at once. One song in your ear stops you humming another. Part of the reason he’d come here, noisy little planet full of chatty little people. He’d been so certain they could drown out the repetitive rhythm that was driving him slowly insane. But he’d been wrong, and the drums had sounded for so long. And the Doctor…

The Doctor had wanted to heal him. Mend his scarred psyche with telepathic medication and isolation. He’d never really understood being cruel to be kind, anymore than he understood killing with kindness. He probably never would. He’d always had a hard time with ethical grey areas. Not like the Master. The very title promoted the vision of a lord surveying all boundaries, ethical or otherwise, and knowing his domain. All he saw was his.

And he saw the Doctor kneeling. Subservient. He walked slowly over and stood looking down at him.

“You do know, don’t you, that this isn’t going to be what you planned.”

The Doctor looked up at him with eyes so calm and indifferent that the Master swung his fist without thinking. The Doctor sprawled on the floor and stayed there, playing dead to escape the angry predator.

Angrily, he grabbed the Doctor’s collar and hit the man’s head against the floor. There was no struggle, he was allowed to manhandle his friend/enemy/so much more until the shirt was torn off and he was straddling the other Time Lord. He glanced up at the dark eyes and saw it – fear. About bloody time.

“What do you think I’m going to do to you?”

Eyebrow raised, the other man dryly said, “I can’t possibly imagine,” pointedly looking at where their clothed groins were touching.

“Is it part of your plan to save me?”

“Being taken up the arse by a psychopath?” The Doctor said with a look of disbelief. “If it was, it would hardly be a shining example of my intellect now, would it?”

The Master smiled gently and leant down, taking the Doctor’s lips in a tender kiss. It felt like going home. He pressed their foreheads together. “You think me brutal and psychotic?” he asked quietly. 

The Doctor said nothing, but his gaze confirmed this verdict.

With a smile, the Master rose to his feet. “You don’t have the power to stop me. I’ll destroy everything you hold dear. Everything.”

Righteous rage contorted the Doctor’s face. “I will fight to my last breath.”

“Even if you don’t have to?” The Master said, idly drumming that damned repetitive rhythm on the desk of his office. He saw the Doctor’s eyes narrow at the monotonous movement of his fingers. 

“What are you saying? If you’re asking me to give up…”

The Master waved his hands up in the air a little. “No, no, not that. I wouldn’t be so masochistic.” He paused, wondering how to phrase his offer. “Earth isn’t so bad, you know.”

“Then help me protect it, rather than destroy it.” So bloody noble…

“I would happily give my life to guard that which you consider precious. Your silly little planet, your silly little friends, but I would need some sort of compensation.”

“I can stop the voices,” the good Doctor offered eagerly.

The Master smiled, his eyes turning it into something sinister.

“I know you can. But we do it my way.”

*

It was raining. That helped. The anarchic patter of drops against glass provided a backdrop to the new rhythm. No drums, just flesh against flesh and groans and moans. The Doctor cried out, half pleased, half pained at the sensations his Master brought him. And the pleasure they felt ran from one mind to the other, so intense it drowned out the world, their plans, the drums…

The drums stopped when he took the Doctor. When they were apart, the sound would slowly build in his head, barely audible at first, like a computer monitor. But it would grow in volume until it deafened him and he would run down the halls, ignoring the stares, clutching his ears, going to one specific room that contained his sanctuary. 

The Doctor would murmur all sorts of sentimental garbage and it wouldn’t drown out the sound, so the Master would have to hurt him over and over to hear those gasps and moans that completely messed up the pattern of the beating in his head. 

He lay in the darkness, listening to the rains chaotic dance on the skylight. His eyes were closed, but the Doctor’s cool body was pressed against his side. “I thought you’d have left by now,” he murmured, too tired to keep his thoughts to himself.

“Why?” The question sounded innocent (this new body of the Doctor’s radiated innocence), but it was completely unnecessary.

“You know why. I hurt you. That’s supposed to offend your delicate Earth sensibilities.”

“I told you I’d help you.”

“You also said this wasn’t what you had in mind.”

“You’re holding up your end of the bargain. And you don’t hurt me that much,” he said with a slight pout.

“You screamed.”

“Did I?” The Doctor looked away again. “I suppose I did.” The voice switched from flippant to serious in an instant. “What would we do if I fled?”

“I’d kill your friends. It would stop them asking questions incessantly. You ought to talk to them more, keep them from bothering me. I have a country to run.”

“And I suppose we would fight.”

“Yep.” The Master turned onto his side. “Scared I’d kill you?”

“You wouldn’t.”

“That’s an awful big gamble.”

“Not at all. I’d kill you.”

“I don’t think…”

But the Doctor interrupted, in a detached voice that stopped the Master cold. “I would kill you. Then, assuming my hearts didn’t break beyond repair, I would probably go on to lead a life of noble and brave celibacy, protecting people without the slightest bit of enthusiasm until something eventually did me in. And I would die alone.” Then, with a big smile that could be seen even in the dim light of the room, he dropped his head onto the Master’s chest. “So it might be best if I stay. At least until I figure out how to give you telepathic therapy without a physical connection.”

“I think it’s actually physical therapy that’s helping me.”

Even in the dark, he knew the Doctor’s eyebrow would be raised as he muttered, “oh, really.”

There was so much more he wanted to say. Something about their past, something about their present and so much about their future. But the drums were starting again so he could only tighten his fingers around the Doctor’s slender hips and pull him closer.

“Help me,” he whispered.

As if he had ever needed to ask.


End file.
